Worth The Risk
by ChasingRaggedy
Summary: [Torchwood] Ianto has contracted a myserious disease and his condition is getting worse. Jack has to call upon The Doctor's help to save his lover's life.
1. Mysterious Objects

**Worth The Risk**

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Torchwood or any of its characters (no matter how high I bid- 'lesigh')

**Spoilers:** Various bits and pieces from Torchwood season 1- "Countrycide" and Doctor Who "Doomsday". Post-"End of Days"

**Chapter 1**

Jack watched from his office as Ianto carefully travelled from the coffee machine with his tray of industrial strength coffee to each member of Torchwood Three. Gwen eagerly took her mug and praised Ianto for his expertise in coffee making. By the time Ianto had made his way to Jack's office, there was only one mug on the tray left.

Although they were both staring at each other, Ianto knocked on Jack's door.

"You don't need to knock any more," Jack said from behind his desk as Ianto made his way across the room to deliver the goods.

"Every one else does," Ianto replied, placing the mug in front of Jack who didn't seem to acknowledge its placement.

Jack kept his gaze on Ianto. "You're not every one else."

Ianto smiled and nodded his head. "One cup of industrial strength coffee," he said, indicating to the cup. Jack ignored the cup and stood up from his desk and began to make his way around.

"- just for you," Ianto finished. Jack maintained his gaze on his lover, moving slowly toward him. He made his way around the back of Ianto and gently slipped his arm around his waist, pulling his closer.

"I'd much rather have _you_ instead," he whispered into his ear, and then gently kissed behind Ianto's ear.

Ianto giggled. "That tickles, Sir."

Ianto slowly turns to look deeply into his lover's entrancing eyes. He could spend hours just looking into his eyes. Jack softly pulls Ianto forward until both bodies were touching each other. Jack gently places a kiss on his lover's lips. Ianto returns the kiss with force, prying Jack's lips apart and slid his tongue across his teeth. Jack snogs back, placing a hand behind Ianto's neck and playing with the base of his hair, making him chuckle and pull his lips away from Jack's.

Meanwhile downstairs, Gwen strolls past Owen with her profile on an eyewitness account on a Weevil attack.

"You goin' up to see Jack?" Owen calls behind her.

"Yep," she replied without stopping or looking back.

"I wouldn't!"

This made her stop, turn and sigh. "They're at it again, aren't they?"

Owen nods.

"That's all well and good, but not when I've got bloody work to do" she complained as she walked back towards Owen.

"Oh, hang on, did I just hear that properly? For a moment there, you sounded like Tosh," Owen commented. Gwen rolled her eyes.

"Well, perhaps you should be more like Tosh. Have some enthusiasm to work here."

Owen laughed hysterically as Gwen battered him with her folder. Owen jumped out from his chair and engulfed her in a gigantic hug and started to tickle her.

"Owen, stop, ple—" her cries of angst were cut short by cries of laughter. She kicked the air as Owen continued to torment her.

They both stopped when Tosh's computer sang out an alarm. Tosh wasn't at her work station, which was odd.

"Tosh?" Gwen called out, just in case she was somewhere and couldn't hear her computer.

"You better have not killed my computer like last time," Tosh called as she promptly marched toward her work station.

Gwen huffed a laugh. "No, your computer is giving out some sort of…warning? I dunno."

Simultaneously, something in Ianto's pocket vibrated against both Jack's leg and his own. Ianto pulled away from Jack's grip and Jack moaned.

"I doubt that's what I was hoping it would be," he laughed and Ianto smiled at the joke as he looked at his palm pilot from his pocket.

"Tosh's computer is giving out a warning about something being washed through the Rift," he explained, as he began to walk out of Jack's office. "I suggest you sit down for a while until that goes down a bit, Sir," Ianto commented and walked out towards Tosh's work space.

"What's going on?" Ianto inquired.

"Hate to pry you away from Jack, but my computer is giving off readings of some sort of alien weapon that has washed up on Cardigan Bay."

"Do you know what it looks like?" Owen asks.

Tosh shook her head. "Fro some reason, my computer doesn't recognise it. It could look like anything, however big or small."

"Any one for a treasure hunt?" Jack called, already walking through the Hub door. As usual, Gwen, Tosh and Owen grabbed their jackets and followed their Captain out of the Hub, leaving Ianto alone. He sighed as the main door shut and went about his cleaning duties. He didn't even bother to look up when he heard the door open again.

"Forget the car keys, again?" He said, putting empty pizza boxes into a plastic bag.

"Not exactly," came Jack's voice and Ianto was lifted from behind and carried down the stairs and out the door.

"Jack, what are you doing?" Ianto cried, not sure whether to be happy or embarrassed as the team snickered at the sight of Jack carrying him.

"You're getting some fieldwork experience."

"Last time that happened, I was almost cut into sausages," he said, as Jack set him down next to the SUV.

Jack waited until Gwen and Tosh had climbed into the back seat of the SUV before replying. He placed a soft hand on Ianto's cheek. "You're with the Captain now."

The trip to Cardigan Bay was filled with gossip about the weather, cherry blossoms and "Brokeback Mountain".

In the midst of a moment's silence, Ianto chuckled to himself.

"What's so funny?" Gwen asked from the back.

"It just occurred to me…You always tease me because I clean the coffee machine each day, I'm just wondering how many times Owen cleans his car each day?" Ianto mused, pointing out how shiny and clean Owen's blue sports car looks from the back.

Gwen and Tosh sniggered; Jack just smiled and kept driving.

"You know, I swear I thought I heard him talking to his car when we were leaving the Hub one night," Tosh added. This made every one start cracking jokes about how intimate Owen is towards his car.

Owen turned off the main road and onto a small, deserted beach, the SUV in pursuit.

"Oh my GOD," Gwen cried as her hair was tossed every which way by the wind. "It's freezing."

"You can say that again," said Owen as he strolled to meet the rest of the team. "So where is this thing?"

Tosh pulled out her palm pilot. "It's…approximately 120 metres west from here." Jack lead the way, the team followed.

Gwen, Tosh and Owen shivered and hugged themselves in an attempt to keep warm; Ianto and Jack seemed unaffected by the wintry temperature. They walked along the sandy beach in search of the alien weapon.

"Jack," Tosh yelled above the winds. "It should be about 20 feet ahead." 

Ianto's eyes locked onto something in the distance. Something that didn't belong on a beach.

"We see it, Tosh!"

The team formed a circle around the object, half buried in the sand. It was an oddly shaped trinket box, about the size of a clenched fist with bizarre symbols inscribed on its browny-gold surface. It's round and the top resembled a pyramid; all sides curved smoothly to a golden point in the middle.

"I thought you said it was a weapon," Owen said.

"I did."

Putting on his rubber gloves, Owen carefully picked it up only to yelp with pain and drop it again.

"What happened? Is it hot?" Gwen asked.

"No," Owen said cradling his hand. "It's freezing cold."

"You should've used safety tongs, anyway," Tosh said as she placed the trinket box in a plastic bag with the "Torchwood" symbol on it.

"Thankyou for telling me that Tosh. However, you were a little bit _delayed_—"

"Cut it out, Owen."

"Can we _please _get out of here?!" Gwen pleaded, jumping up and down.

"Was there anything else, Tosh?" Jack asked.

"No, just this," she said, holding up the bag.

"You might want to put it in another bag," Jack said, looking at the hole the trinket had made.

"It's melting it's way through the plastic…"

"Even more incentive for us to get back to the Hub!"

Jack nodded his head and Gwen bolted for the SUV, Tosh and Owen trailed behind. Ianto walked ahead of Jack and stepped around a large puddle of sea water.

He turned to speak to Jack. "You know—" was all he could say before his front was splattered with the water from puddle by Jack's foot. Ianto stopped dead in his tracks, looked at his wet suit, then to Jack, back to the suit and then back to Jack with an expression as if to say, "What the _fuck _was that for?!"

Jack burst into hysterics and put his arm around Ianto's and led him toward the SUV.

"I couldn't resist," he laughed.

Ianto shrugged off Jack's arm around his neck and pushed him to the car door. Ianto returned the smile.

They got into the car and made their way back to the Hub.

"Okay, when we get back, run a search on the trinket box. I want to know what know what this "weapon" does.


	2. Everything's Erroneous

**Worth The Risk**

**Chapter 2.**

**WARNING: **Contains spoilers for Countrycide and slightly Cyberwoman

**Disclaimer: **I, unfortunately, do not own Torchwood. If I did, there'd be more Jack/Ianto quicksmart!

Every-one was tired. _Exhausted_. For the past 48 hours, the team had been compiling all the information they have on the trinket box; which wasn't much. Due to the extremely odd characteristic of the box being cold enough to burn your hand, it limited down how specific the tests could be, therefore giving little information in the results.

"Ah, shit!" came a cry from the autopsy room.

Gwen sighed. He never learned. "How many is that now?"

"Nine times."

Gwen scoffed a laugh, and continued researching. Again.

"Far out," Owen said as he came from the autopsy room, cradling his hand. "As soon as we find them, I'm gonna kill the bastards who made that thing."

"Owen, you've burned your hand _nine _times, now."

"Yeah, and each time it hurts more and more."

"Aw, diddims. Would you like me to kiss it better?" Gwen laughed. She snapped her head back at the sound of the Hub door opening and Ianto carrying a cardboard tray with three coffees and one herbal tea with a plastic bag around his wrist.

"You are a _saint_," cried Gwen as she took her cup and almost skulled the lot. "Mmm, that's good stuff."

Ianto gave Tosh her tea and Owen his latte, with something else as well.

"I bought you a present," as Ianto chucked the plastic bag on Owen's desk and continued to deliver Jack's coffee. Owen picked up the plastic bag from his desk and retrieved a pair of grey woollen gloves with pink and yellow flowers on the cuff.

"I'd thought you might like them," Ianto smirked, and entered Jack's office.

Owen had nothing to reply with, so he stomped back to the autopsy room, gloves still in his hand. If you listened carefully, you could hear the _crackle _of the plastic being opened.

"Make sure you put them on the right hand," Gwen called.

"Ah, shut up!"

"We don't want you burning yourself again!"

"Oh dear," Tosh muttered staring at one of her four computer screens.

"What's up?"

"We have more Weevils on a rampage in Splott. Except, it's not just one this time. It's a pack of four."

Gwen read the information on Tosh's screen. "I'll tell Jack."

Gwen marched upstairs and knocked on Jack's door, interrupting him and Ianto's heated moment in the corner of his office.

"I'm sorry to interrupt," she said, blushing. "But there's a pack of four Weevils that have attacked in Splott and killed four people."

Jack cleared his throat and sat back down at his desk. He looked at the paperwork on his desk, then at Ianto still standing in the corner and then finally at Gwen.

"I'm sorry, did you say something?"

Gwen came inside the door. "I said, that four people have been killed by a _pack_ of Weevils in Splott."

"Sploe—" Ianto cut in.

Gwen continued. "Tosh is following the four of them on the CCTV network. But we have to do something quick."

Jack stood up and grabbed his jacket held out by Ianto and stalked out of his office, his colleagues in close pursuit.

"Ianto, I want you to follow the Weevils on CCTV and tell us where they're heading. Gwen, Tosh, Owen, with me," Jack instructed without ever stopping. "We're going on a Weevil hunt."

"Jack, I hate to point out, but there are _four _Weevils and three of us. It usually takes all of us to capture one. So…what's the plan?" Tosh said from the back of the SUV.

"If they're hunting in a pack, then they'll be relying on each other. If we take out one Weevil, then the pack will scatter because they've seen that we're a threat," Jack replied.

"Wouldn't that give them more incentive to attack us?"

"You'd think that, yeah. But they don't. They flee."

Back in the Hub, Ianto did like his Captain has instructed. "They've turned onto Havock street and heading down onto Old Forest Road," he said into his earpiece.

"_Still all four of them?_" came the reply.

"Yes."

"_Tell us if any of them gets separate from the rest of the pack."_

"Yes, sir."

Ianto called out directions into his earpiece and Jack followed, and sure enough within half an hour, had caught up with one that had left the rest of the group.

"_We got him, Ianto."_

"What about the other three Weevils?"

"_Where are they now?"_

"They are…" Ianto began and looked at the CCTV footage. "They're gone. They've separated. The last of the Weevils just entered a sewer not two minutes ago."

"_Alright. If they're lurking in the sewers, then there's no need for us to go after them. We'll come back with this one, though. We'll be an hour, tops," _said Jack through his earpiece.

"Copy that, sir."

Ianto was about to go clean the coffee machine but was distracted by Tosh's findings on the trinket box.

_Not much_, he thought.

He left her work station and entered the autopsy room where the trinket box lay on the examination table. He made sure as to not touch it; his eyes scanned the surface. His eyes were diverted by at least five coffee mugs left abandoned on the desk in the corner. Ianto rolled his eyes and cursed Owen's inability to be tidy. He gathered the mugs in his hands—

_Sssssccccreeeeeecccchhhhh!_

The Pterodactyl swooped down from his hangar high above in the Hub unexpectedly causing Ianto to jump in surprise and knock over the trinket box and all five mugs.

He cursed in Welsh and made to pick of the larger shattered pieces of glass when a bluish gas was emitted from the trinket box, laying on the floor. Ianto remained still as the gas hovered in the air. He slowly stood, trying not to make any sudden movements. He _had _to get one of those gas masks from the kit, less than ten feet away.

In a blink of an eye, the gas dived at Ianto, making him trip backwards and fall over clumsily. Everything went black.

Everything was hazy and out of focus. Ianto gradually opened his eyes, half expecting to find the rest of the team back in the Hub. But the Hub remained silent. Puzzled by how he came to be lying on the concrete floor in the autopsy room, he shook off the haziness and progressively stood up.

He became aware of the mess that surrounded him; a heap of shattered glass and the trinket box on the ground. He picked it up to put it back on the examination table and went to find a broom. It only occurred to him that the trinket box had not burnt him as he was returning from reception.

He frowned, confused but pushed it from his mind. There were many things he didn't understand.

After he emptied the trash, he went down to the vault to check a rather disruptive Weevil the team had caught earlier. This particular Weevil had not stopped wailing and attacking the door of its cell since it was caught three days ago. To be honest, Ianto was more worried about how long the door could handle such a beating.

Meanwhile, the SUV was caught behind, at least, thirty minutes of traffic.

"C'mon! All this due to a broken water pipe?!"

"Tosh, any way we can get back to the Hub just that _tad _bit faster?" Jack asked, pressing the car horn impatiently.

"There _was _a turn-off back thirty meters, but the quickest route that we can actually _achieve _is waiting until we meet another turn-off approximately one hundred meters ahead."

Jack slammed his hands on the wheel and sighed. "Still hate the countrycide?" he asked Owen.

"More than ever."

"But this," Jack said, indicating to the countless cars ahead of them not moving, "is what you get in the city. Some-one screws up and then other people who are in a hurry to get back to their secret underground with a ferocious alien in the back pay the price."

"You don't get cannibals in the city. It's too sophisticated for them," Owen replied, recalling the memories of when the team dared to venture out into remote land to investigate so-called "alien activity".

"But you said so yourself. Aliens wouldn't want to hang around out there."

"And neither would I. I'll take my chances in an alien-inhabited, non-cannibalistic city, thankyou very much" Owen called as Jack moved the SUV forward.

"Ah HA! We moved! We moved! How much did we move?" Owen said excitedly.

"About an inch," Gwen droned.

"That's one inch less to travel!"

Jack sat quietly in the driver's seat and decided to call the Hub. The sound of Ianto's voice might just make the wait bearable. He tried ringing Ianto's earpiece, but discovered that it had been disconnected. So, he tried the reception phone.

However, Ianto couldn't hear the phone all the way down in the vault. No-one could. He stared at the _finally_ sleeping Weevil lying sprawled on the floor.

_Such mysterious creatures_, he thought.

Without warning, the Weevil was on its feet, hitting and kicking the cell door.

_And completely unpredictable._

He looked deeply into the angry Weevil's eyes and wondered what he was thinking, if he was thinking at all. This trance was broken when the fluorescent lights above began to flicker and then went completely out and the Vault was plunged into darkness and silence. There were no roars or screeches from any of the creatures in the cells.

Ianto turned slowly and made his way to where he believed the door to be.

Unexpectedly, the lights turned back on and Ianto found himself staring face-to-face with some-one whom he believed was long gone. Ancient history. But her beautiful dark face still managed to make his heart skip a beat.

"Hello, Ianto" she said sweetly.

"Lisa?"

**A/N: Yo there, readers. Another chapter completed. 'twas fun to write—seriously. I'm having fun writing this story and I'd appreciate if you could R&R and tell me what you think.**


	3. Parting's Such A Sweet Sorrow

**Worth The Risk**

**Chapter 3**

Every few minutes or so, Captain Jack Harkness would glance at his watch. It seemed that the seconds hand was moving slower than ever, and he could've sworn that it moved backwards once or twice. 

He yawned.

He wasn't used to this. To waiting. Usually, Torchwood arrived at a scene of crime within of few minutes of it coming to some-one's attention in the Hub, usually Tosh or Ianto. They'd sweep in, were able to clear the site of any unwanted police or detectives (the amateurs, Owen calls them), gather the relevant evidence with state-of-the-art technology (sometimes, extraterrestrial) and then retreat back to the Hub. Simple.

He gazed out at the expansion of cars stuck in the same traffic jam in the narrow two-way road. The darkness of the night made them all look the same colour. The rain pelted down and added an illustrious effect on the surface of the vehicles. 

"Any new developments, Tosh?"

Tosh typed proficiently on her keyboard and brought up CCTV footage of the broken water pipe site.

"Not really," she said. "Almost half of the road is completely flooded, but some trucks have arrived and have started dredging the water. The pipe has been fixed, so it's just a matter of how fast the water is sucked up."

"And this rain certainly wouldn't be helping," Gwen added.

"How long do you think we'll be stuck here?" Jack asked.

Tosh chewed her bottom lip. "Approximately, a minimum of thirty minutes."

"And after hearing that, I'm just about willing to hop out and help the truckies me'self," said Owen.

Jack tried Ianto's mobile, but it went straight to voice mail, which was extremely rare. Something was happening in the Hub, which made Jack Harkness ever more anxious to return to their base.

--------------------------------------------------- 

Lisa smiled and revealed a set of white teeth. She looked just like she had before the battle of Canary Wharf. Before the whole cyberman business. When Ianto and herself were head over heels in love with each other. But it wasn't like that now.

"How are you…? I mean, how can you be…?" Ianto stammered between rapid breaths. 

"Oh, Ianto," she cocked her head to one side and giggled, "don't look at me like that. You knew deep down that I wasn't going to remain gone forever."

Ianto dared to blink. "You're dead. I saw you die."

"That's right, I _did _die. Your buddies pumped me full of bullets," she said harshly. 

"How can I see you?"

"You Welshmen. Always find fault in something fantastic. Aren't you happy that I'm here? That you can hold me once again?" She took a step forward.

"I must be hallucinating. This is…_insane_."

Lisa rolled her eyes. "Ianto, you're not hallucinating." There was an awkward pause. "I though you'd be happy to see me."

"Happy to see you?" He repeated. "_You're dead! _I shouldn't even be _seeing _you."

"Has your love for me changed so much in the time that I've been away?"

Ianto thought of Jack and his friends firing their weapons at "Lisa" down in the basement. He remembered how he felt when he looked at Jack. He hasn't experienced such feelings since. Who would've thought that in a space of a few months, Ianto's hatred and malice towards Jack transformed into love and affection?

"Have I been replaced already?" she asked coldly.

"What do you mean?"

"Don't be coy with me, Ianto. I know all about your love affair with Jack."

"Affair?"

"You and I never properly broke-up, so it's still an affair."

"What Jack and I have between us is more than just an _affair_."

"Is it love?" 

Ianto paused and quietly whispered yes.

Lisa looked as if she were about to cry. But what Ianto said was true; his love for Jack is his energy source; his oxygen. He can't live without it.

She stalked forwards and stopped in front of him. "Can he do this?"

Lisa embraced Ianto in a spellbinding kiss. It wasn't hard or forceful; it was soft and gentle. 

He pulled backwards and looked her deep in the eyes. "I don't know how I'm seeing you, or how you came to be here. But, I _do _know that you're dead. I witnessed your death, which soon became the turning point in my life. I've moved on and found joy in my life again and let go of your memory. But, if your memory can't let go of me, then I have nothing but pity in my heart for you."

Lisa remained silent. Her beautiful brown eyes swelled up with tears, but she fought to hold them back.

Ianto turned to make his way back up to the autopsy room. He stopped at the door to have one final look at Lisa, but was met with the face of something else. He instinctively repulsed backwards and tripped over his own feet.

"Then we are not compatible."

--------------------------------------------------- 

"Okay, what's up?" Owen asked, sitting up in his seat.

Jack raised an eyebrow. "I don't follow."

"Why are you anxious?"

"I'm not anxious," Jack said quickly.

"As if. Your eyes are moving every which way, your whole body is tensed and hardly moving, you're checking your watch every two minutes and continuously trying to get in contact with some-one on the phone."

"Do the words "vicious sedated alien" ring any bells?"

"Hold up a minute. Lets just highlight a very significant word in that previous sentence. _Sedated_."

Gwen smirked in the back. She loved Owen's sense of humour. It was something that Rhys didn't possess, to a certain extent.

"Ianto will be there when we get back. And then you two can do…whatever it is that you two do, which of course, we don't see and hopefully won't be seeing in the future."

"Oh, Owen, don't be some homophobic," Gwen complained from the back.

Owen turned to face her. "Excuse me. I'm one of the last people you should be calling homophobic."

The extensive procession of cars in front of them began to roll forwards, slowly at first but gradually picked up speed.

"Oh thank God. I thought I was gonna pee myself," Gwen cried.

"Thanks for the update."

"I don't care how many speeding tickets you'd get, just speed back to the Hub!"

The black SUV tore past the remainder of trucks dredging up the last of the water. 

Jack floored the accelerator as soon as the streets were empty of any pedestrian vehicles.

_We're coming, Ianto_, Jack thought. _We're coming._

--------------------------------------------------- 

Ianto desperately scrambled backwards to escape Lisa's cyberman fingers coming towards. He stopped for moment when he blindly struck the bottom stair, but this was just long enough for Lisa to grab hold of his shirt and hurl like a discus over the other side of the room. He landed with a thud on his stomach and groaned as he tried to stand.

"Lisa, please," he pleaded.

He felt both hands take hold to the back of his suit jacket and was lunged into the nearest concrete wall. Lisa ignored his cries and continued to fling him about him about the room without a care.

"We are not compatible. You will be deleted."

With the strength he could muster, he charged at Lisa in a hope to push her into a cell. In a blink of an eye, she disappeared right in front of him. Ianto ran straight into an oncoming wall and, once again, everything went black.


	4. Bearer Of Bad News

**Worth The Risk**

**Chapter 4**

His eyes fluttered. The brightness of what he assumed was a fluorescent light made Ianto shut his eyes immediately. When he opened them again, everything was blurry and out of focus. He felt like he'd just tumbled down the rabbit hole. Ianto wished that Alice and the White Rabbit would soon appear and then he could come to the conclusion that this was all a dream, as was his throbbing head.

His eyes adjusted to the brightness, and he was able to take in his current surroundings. He was lying on the couch in Jack's office, but there was no sign of Jack. In fact, there wasn't a sign of anybody. There was no consistent typing sound of Toshiko, there was no moaning of Owen, and there was no sweet giggle of Gwen. There was nothing. Just silence. 

_How did I end up in here? _

Ianto tried to recall the memories of that past few hours, but it seemed only to antagonise his already painful headache. He tried to speak, but the words got caught in his mouth and it was only then did he notice the disgusting after taste of bile in his throat. He swallowed to hopefully rinse the horrible feeling, but it was no use.

"Jack?" he mumbled. Ianto tried to stand, only to fall back into the couch again. Just how long was he asleep? He tried again. Putting one foot in front of the other and using objects such as the desk and chair to support him, he slowly proceeded towards the door.

"Jack?" he yelled louder. A sudden painful throbbing sensation robbed Ianto of all thought as he brought up a hand to lightly pat his forever-aching head. Because of this, he was unaware of Jack's presence come running through the door just in time to catch him as Ianto fell forwards. Jack brought him to the floor and cradled him in his arms.

"I'm here, Ianto. I'm here." Jack held him close as he gently stroked Ianto's head.

Ianto looked his Captain in the eyes. "Nice to see you again, Sir." He smiled and Jack returned with grin. "How long have I been asleep?"

"For about 12 hours," Jack whispered.

"And, how did I get here? I can't seem to remember."

"Tosh and I found you in the cells unconscious and we carried you back up here."

"Unconscious?" Ianto repeated.

Toshiko returned from the autopsy room, carrying several large coloured folders. Walking past Jack's office, she saw Ianto on the floor in Jack's arms. As odd as it may have appeared, Toshiko couldn't help but smile.

"Are you feeling better, Ianto?" She asked, standing just inside the doorway.

"I am feeling just fine, thankyou Tosh," he replied and immediately looked back into Jack's eyes.

She smiled and returned to her work station. She opened the first coloured folder and began working, silently and contently. She liked it when she couldn't hear Owen's never ending droning noises.

"OOOOOOOH," came Jack's voice from his office. Tosh hopped off her stool to check if everything was in order. What she saw drove her into hysterics.

Jack and Ianto were still on the floor, just as she had left them, but with an extra-added bonus.

"Nice to see you too, Ianto," Jack commented sarcastically as he kissed him on the head and left his office with vomit all over his shirt.

Toshiko put Ianto's arm over her shoulder and helped him hobble back over to the couch, at which point, Jack returned with a roll of paper towels, carpet cleaner and a damp cloth.

"That's…my job…Sir," Ianto mumbled.

The Hub door rolled opened and soon Gwen and Owen were giggling like two schoolgirls at the sight of their Captain covered in some-one's vomit.

Jack set the cleaning products on his desk and kneeled down next down to his lover and placed the damp cloth on his forehead.

"I'm sorry, Captain." Jack just smiled and went to change his shirt. "I'll ma' sure that geths thry cleaned."

"Say again, Ianto."

"I thsaid ttthhat I'll get your thhirt thry cleaned, thir."

Jack frowned. As far as he knew, Ianto wasn't a drinker, so drunkenness was out of the question. "Ianto, you're not feeling. I need you to get some sleep."

He shook in protest. "That won't be nethathary, thir. I feel fiine."

Jack kneeled next to him. "But you don't sound fine." He smiled and caressed Ianto's hand, but frowned. His hands were ice cold and his fingertips were going an ugly bruise colour. Jack removed the damp cloth on Ianto's forehead, which was felt as hot as teakettle.

With cloth hand, he left his office slowly to visit Owen at his workstation. Rather than working, Gwen and he were in a relatively interesting conversation about their history of drunken episodes. Gwen, already having begun her second story about how she engaged in a mud fight with a random girl at the same bar, stopped mid-sentence and retreated timidly to her own workstation. Jack's unhurried progression towards Owen could've given anyone the insinuation that he came bearing bad news, which suggests why Gwen left in such a manner.

"Jack. I was, er, just—"

"Feel this," Jack chucked Owen the cloth, which he caught in one hand. Owen had a confused expression on his face.

"It's hot."

"That damp cloth was run with cold water and in the space of five minutes of it lying on Ianto's forehead, it turns to that," Jack indicated to the cloth in Owen's hand.

Owen immediately dismissed it. "Probably just a fever." He tossed the cloth back to Jack and begun his work.

"Then come and work a diagnosis for the rest of him, then." Owen paused for a moment as Jack gestured towards his office. He sighed and heaved himself up from his chair and grabbed his doctor's coat, already equipped with his medical instruments, which hung lazily off the back.

"Do I get paid double this?" he said as he walked past Jack, putting his coat on, and into his office.

"Alright, Ianto. Lets see what's wrong with you," he bent down to Ianto's level. He stopped when saw Ianto's discoloured hands.

"When did this happen?" he was addressing more Ianto than Jack.

"I…I can't remember…" Without warning, Ianto convulsed slightly; a miniature seizure.

"Goth _damn _this headache…"

"His bottom is droopy, which explains his slurred speech," He seized his stethoscope from around his neck and checked Ianto's heartbeat. "His heartbeat is rapid, but that could be due to some anxiety."

Jack watched silently as the doctor worked his magic, so to speak.

Owen mumbled as we went along his invisible checklist, examining Ianto from head to toe. As this progressed, his incoherent medical jargon stopped and he wore a solemn expression on his face.

He nodded his head when he finished and was led back outside Jack's office, so Ianto wouldn't hear.

"So? What's the diagnosis?" Jack inquired, arm's folded across his chest.

"Where was he when you found him?"

"He was down in the cells, unconscious. Tosh got in our CCTV footage and it turns out Ianto ran into a wall and knocked himself out."

Owen sighed. "Jack…it's only my early diagnosis, but…" Jack shifted uncomfortably. "Ianto is presenting similar symptoms to what you find in a brain cancer patient."

Jack's eyes widened. "Come again?"

"Going by the obvious evidence, he received a massive blow to the head which resulted in knocking himself unconscious, he is complaining of headaches, he's got a immense fever, slurred speech, disorientation and judging from what I saw earlier he is also suffering from nausea."

Jack paused so he could comprehend this new information. "What about his hands?"

Owen shook his head. "I dunno. I've never seen that before. I can't link his hands with any other symptom that might suggest what he's experiencing."

"I want to run a full bio-scan on him. Find out what's happening to him," Jack said sternly.

Owen was about to protest, but stopped before he said something he might've regretted. With Jack's help, they both steadily guided Ianto down to the autopsy room. Upon leaving, Jack quickly pecked him on the lips and returned to work.

Toshiko jumped off her stool and followed Jack into his office.

"Gosh, aren't I popular today?"

Toshiko ignored him. "I think I may have found a new development," she placed the trinket box on his desk in front of him, exposing the large crack down the side.

"So it _was _hollow…but that doesn't mean something was never inside of it."

Tosh smiled. "Exactly. I went back through the CCTV footage of the Hub whilst we were away to find out what happened," she said, already halfway back to her station.

She elegantly sat back on her stool with Jack standing behind her. "And I fount…" she brought up a window with the CCTV footage, "…_this_." She pressed "play" and the footage showed that night's previous events.

"What the hell is that?" Jack whispered.

"_That _was what used to be inside our trinket box. And I'd so bold as to guess that _that _is what made it unbearable to touch.

"If that made the box unbearable to touch, then I can't imagine what it's doing to—"

Jack bolted down to the autopsy room where the bio-scan was just entering its early stages.

"Jack, I need you to get out!" Owen protested. Jack ignored him.

"Ianto, what happened to you while we were away? It's urgent that you tell me!"

Ianto tried to remember, but his head wouldn't allow it. "I..I can't remember anythin'."

"Jack, get out!"

"C'mon, Ianto! I need you to remember!"

"Oh Goth, my head!" Without warning, he began to seizure violently. Owen, Jack and eventually Gwen helped form a safety barrier so he wouldn't fall off while Tosh looked on fearfully. Eventually, the seizure diminished to mild shakes. Owen went about checking for vital signs and any injuries. Jack receded to the stairs and put his head in his hands.

"He's okay. So signs of broken or dislocated bones, breathing is normal, heartbeat is slowing. He's just unconscious, but I'll need to do a scan for any brain damage," he heard Owen say.

"Thankyou Owen, but….I don't think you're the type of Doctor I'm in need of right now."

**A/N: Thanks for reading! Just so you now, Ianto's speech was slurred [they weren't major typos. It was a little bit difficult to write, as I just wrote it as how it sounded. Anyways, hope you liked the latest chapter. R&R. Thanks.**


	5. Glimmer of Hope

**Disclaimer: **_Torchwood_ and its characters are owned by the BBC, not by me.

**Worth The Risk**

**Chapter 5**

Jack watched his lover sleeping soundly in one of the guest bedrooms, which was hardly ever used. After his seizure upstairs, he was uncertain as whether to move him from the autopsy table so soon afterwards, so Ianto was left on the cold metal table for about an hour, during which Jack never left his side, despite the towering mound of paperwork yet to be completed.

"How's he doing?" Came Gwen's comforting voice from the doorway.

"He's just sleeping. Hasn't moved since his seizure. He was been sleep talking though, which is comforting."

"Comforting? How is that comforting?" Gwen said when she came inside the door and pulled up a chair next to her boss.

"Having spent almost every night with him, I think I know what he does in his sleep," he said with a smirk.

There came an awkward silence afterwards, but Jack seemed unaffected by it.

"Jack, there was something I wanted to ask you…"

Jack continued to stare at the sleeping Ianto. Gwen continued with her question.

"What did you mean when you said to Owen that he wasn't the "type of Doctor" you needed anymore?" Gwen had heard Jack mention this mysterious "Doctor" several times since she was recruited to Torchwood, but was never given any solid information about whom he actually was.

"It means exactly like it sounds. This is something beyond what any normal human doctor can treat."

Gwen shifted uncomfortably. "Do you have a plans on how you intend to get him here?"

"I have a hunch, but it's no guarantee that it'll work." Abruptly, Jack got up from his chair and left the room, whipping away a tear as he did so.

Once again, the main area of Torchwood was silent; Owen and Toshiko were out getting lunch. Jack walked directly into his office straight to his computer in the corner. He brought up a web browser and typed in "The Doctor TARDIS". Within a split second, the computer had come up with 248, 635 results, most of which were about different doctors, with no mention of the TARDIS.

He went back into the search bar and added in the word "Timelord". After a longer wait for results, the computer came up with 6 results.

Jack clicked every link, scanning the information that was brought to the screen. Four of the six had absolutely nothing to do with the Doctor; one link was even about a giraffe in Sydney, Australia. The final link had much more promising information relating to the Doctor. There was no name or contact left anywhere on the web page, just various pieces of information about the lonely wanderer, with no information enclosed on how you could contact him.

Jack slumped back into his chair and sighed.

_It was a long shot._

And then it struck him. That imaginary light bulb above his head immediately lit up and shone brightly. Leaving his office in a flurry, Jack strode down the stairs in the direction of the archives. He rarely came down here; nobody ever came down here. Except for Ianto. Quite regularly, if there wasn't anything important to do, Ianto was down in the cold and murky corridors of the archives, organising it all; his personal hobby.

Jack recalled Ianto telling him about an alien device in particular. A device that has the ability to trace the origin of any object. When it was tested, back when Suzie was still employed in Torchwood, this device- called the "locator" which was named by Owen, came back with some interesting results.

The team tested a bizarre banana shaped gadget, which resembled something like a shrunken bow. The "locator" proved that his object had come from a planet in another galaxy called Klaxucious, home to the Hoadilites, a civilisation that had the ability to see far away distances due to their extremely long necks.

Jack navigated his way hopelessly through the dark and mouldy smelling corridors. Four small fluorescent lights cemented into the wall illuminated each corridor, which was no way near the amount of light needed, considering the length of some of the walkways.

He felt like he was halfway to London before Jack found the right room. You could easily tell Ianto had been down here, judging by the boxes neatly stacked according to a certain characteristic. Back when the "locator" had been tested, Jack had specifically asked Ianto to place the "locator" in a box by itself at the far end of the first shelf.

And he had been true to his word.

There, at the far end of the first shelf, sat a lone box, with a thin layer of dust accumulating on the top. Jack snatched up the box and removed the lid and to reveal the locator, unmoved in several years and now called upon in the desperation of finding the Doctor.

Jack lightly jogged back, using his photographic memory to guide him back to the main area of Torchwood. A crack in the wall turn left, puddle in the middle of the floor go straight ahead, busted light bulb turn right. Running straight past the water tower into his office and retrieved the mysterious hand in the glass jar. Unscrewing the top, he stuck his hand into the bubbling liquid and pulled out the Doctor's hand. Activating the "locator", he scanned the Doctor's hand up and down and waited for the "locator" to get some results. It was not uncommon for the "locator" to not have any record of the object's origin, so Jack prayed extra hard that there was a result.

After many minutes waiting, the "locator" projected a hologram with its results.

_**ORIGIN: GALLIFREY**_

_**LOCATION: PLANET BARCELONA**_

Jack knew the planet Barcelona quite well. Of all the peculiar sights of this exotic planet, the one thing that continues to amaze him are the dogs without noses.

_It's just so…unearthly! _He remembered thinking.

Jack began fumbling around with the "locator" feeling its surface to find one specific spot in particular that you couldn't actually see. The glorious thing about the "locator" is that it held an extra-added bonus: the ability to send a transmission to the planet's main control tower or something of that nature if you were able to feed the "locator" the correct coordinates. Jack ran his forefinger over the indentation he was looking for and pressed it. For alien technology, it seemed surprisingly human.

"This transmission is for the Doctor. He travels in a blue police box known as the TARDIS- Time And Relative Dimension In Space. This is Captain Jack Harkness representing the Torchwood Institute from the planet Earth. I repeat this message is for the Doctor. Doctor, we are in need of your help. We need urgent medical assistance, and only you can provide the information we need. It is of the upmost importance that you get to Earth as soon as you can. Some-one could die."

Jack ended the transmission there and punched in the coordinates for the planet Barcelona. He then rushed back down to the guest rooms to tell Gwen and the sleeping Ianto the news.

He reached the guest room door and pushed it open and was greeted with a bizarre sight. On Ianto's bed most have been twenty blood soaked tissues, with Gwen holding one more to Ianto's nose.

"What happened?"

"I don't know. His nose just started gushing with blood and I've been here for the last five minutes trying to stop the blood flow," Gwen replied, replacing the now blood soaked tissue with a new, clean one.

"Hasn't he woken up?"

"No. I've tried waking him up, but he's not responding. But, he's put a pulse and he's breathing."

"Ianto…" Jack whispered in his ear, but caused Ianto's eyes to flutter slightly. He whispered in his ear again, but this time, Ianto didn't respond.

Jack eased Gwen's hand away from Ianto's nose.

"What are you doing?" she protested.

Just as she described, blood came free willingly gushing out of both of Ianto's nostrils.

"Where is this blood coming from?" Gwen wondered, reapplying pressure.

"I'll go upstairs to get more tissues and some ice," Jack said, jogging back toward the main of Torchwood. He ran straight to the both, located near the armoury and pulled a box of tissues and the first aid kit from underneath the sink placed them at the base of the stairs before he went up them, taking three stairs at a time to made his way to the fridge, grabbing a tea towel off the table. He poured all the ice that was in the freezer into the tea cloth to make an ice pack. He turned around to head back down the stairs, not concentrating on where he was going, and bumped into something solid, causing him to stumble backwards and fall over. He looked up to see an unfamiliar face in front of him, a tall man wearing a pin-stripe suit and a long brown trench coat.

"Gosh, Jack, you should really watch where you're going next time," the mysterious man said, looking at his surroundings rather than at Jack.

"Do I know you?" Jack said off the ground.

The man smiled, revealing a pair of straight what teeth. "I'm the Doctor."

**A/N: Apologies that it has taken this long to update. I'd like to thank those who added this story to their faves and also to those who reviewed. And special thanks to Lauren H for the inspiration. R&R! Thanks.**


	6. Tricycle Lessons

**Disclaimer: **_Torchwood_ & _Doctor Who _are owned by the BBC, not me.

**A/N: I had begun this fanfic before the end of Doctor Who Season 3. So, I should warn you that if my fanfic doesn't tie in with Doctor Who Season 3, it's because I had already wrote it and can't be bothered to change it.**

**Worth The Risk**

**Chapter 6- Tricycle Lessons.**

It must have looked like a bizarre sight if any random person happened to pass by at this particular moment. Jack Harkness was sprawled across the floor surrounded by ice, and there was a strange man, just identified as the Doctor, gazing around the room as if he didn't have a clue where he was.

"I'm sorry, did I say something?" the Doctor said due to Jack's lack of response.

"Who are you?"

" I told you. I'm the Doctor."

Jack paused. "Huh?"

"You probably don't recognise me. I've grown more hair and have _major _sideburns," he said, twisting his head and pointing to them. "And, I have also got new teeth. Which was weird. _But_, I've sill got a similar nose," the Doctor said, smiling.

"Nose…" Jack whispered. "Ianto!" He jumped up from the floor, sending the ice cubes that happened to land in his lap flying about the floor with the remainder of them, grabbed the tea towel and bolted past the Doctor down the stairs, making a big effort as to not slip over.

"Oi, where are you off to?" the Doctor called from behind him.

"Bigger things to attend to," Jack called without looking back.

The Doctor was left there, standing alone in the centre of the Torchwood Hub, speechless.

"_Bigger _things to attend to?!" He bolted down the stairs in pursuit of Jack, his long brown trench coat ends flapping as he ran.

Jack gracefully ran back into the room, carrying the towels and a few currently melting ice cubes in his hands. Everything he did, Gwen thought, was graceful. But this wasn't the time…

"Is all the ice cubes you managed to bring down?" She asked, placing the makeshift icepack of Ianto's nose.

"It's okay, I'm going back to get some more." He said, as he hurried out he door, only to be knocked down again for the second time.

"Oi, watch it, Jack!" The Doctor stumbled backwards.

"Jack, who's that?" Gwen called from inside.

"Er…it's no-one Gwen. I think your hearing things…" He replied.

"So, I'm no-one know, am I? I'm the last the of bloody Timelords, _that's _who I am!" The Doctor yelled in a whisper.

It felt like Jack had just been slapped in the face. "Doctor?"

"It' me, Jack. It's always been me."

"But, you…look different," Jack whispered.

"Trick of the trade, I'm afraid. Hey, that rhymes!" The Doctor smiled.

Jack edged forward, his hand outstretched. His fingers skimmed the Doctor's skin; from his chin all the way to his cheek. Jack soon placed his entire hand gently on his check, and smiled.

"Doctor."

"Jack"

Then Jack did something the Doctor didn't expect. Jack cupped his chin and with his other hand, _slapped _the Doctor square in the face.

"_What was that for?!"_

"For leaving me stranded." Jack turned and strode away back to the main of the Hub.

"Oh c'mon Jack, you're still sore about that?" The Doctor called from behind him.

Jack immediately turned. "Maybe I am a bit, yeah. Considering the amount of _shit _I went through to get here!"

"I thought you were dead. Killed by the Daleks."

"That's no excuse. After you left, I came to realise that I just the third wheel. I was just the training wheel. And what happens when you've learned how to ride a bike? The third wheel gets thrown away! Sounds a little too close to home, don't you think?"

Jack paused on the stairs and faced the Doctor.

"Did you ever, just once, think of where I may have ended up?"

The Doctor didn't reply, his face unreadable. It became so silent, that you could quite clearly hear the buzz and hum of the various pieces of technology around the Hub; the dripping of water coming from the water tower above.

"Of course you didn't." Jack whispered and continued walking up the stairs to the fridge.

"Jack—"

"No. No, don't even begin to explain. I know how it was between you two, even when I was around. Like I said, third wheel."

Jack picked up a packet of frozen peas from the freezer and wrapped it in another cloth. He turned to see the Doctor examining the information on Toshiko's monitor closely. He removed his glasses slowly and faced Jack with a solemn look.

"You work for Torchwood."

Jack nodded. "Yeah".

"Even after Canary Wharf?!" The Doctor hissed.

"This Torchwood is different—" Jack began.

"Have you any idea what Torchwood did to this planet?! The _entire _Torchwood Institute is to blame! You all try to explain the unexplainable, at whatever cost! You're all ambitious, egotistical, arrogant people who act for themselves. So, don't you dare tell me that this Torchwood is any different. Don't you _dare_," The Doctor yelled, memories of his desperate efforts to save Earth and Rose in the battle of Canary Wharf springing to mind, hurting him.

"I know too well the actions and results of Torchwood One. So much so, that I was one of the first people to arrive on the site to start rebuilding. In your honour." Jack replied.

"Jack?" came a foreign voice from behind him. Gwen had come back from the guest rooms.

"Gwen," Jack jumped up and gestured for her to come up. She advanced slowly up the stairs and stood next to the Captain.

"Gwen, I think it's time you met some-one very important to Torchwood," the Doctor flinched, "and to me."

The Doctor remained still, not smiling, but not glowering. Just standing.

"Gwen, this is the Doctor."

Gwen didn't speak immediately. When she did, it was in stutters. "Is-is…_he _the…the Doctor."

It was know the Doctor who spoke. "The one and only."

Gwen sighed of relief and embraced him in a hug. "Thankyou so much for coming."

The alarm sounded for the door and Owen and Toshiko entered from the Hub, chatting noisily.

"Hey Jack," Owen said as he walked toward his workstation and began unbuttoning his jacket. "How's your boyfriend going?"

The Doctor shot Jack a look. "Boyfriend?" he mouthed in silence.

"Who's that?" Owen asked, walking over to he kitchen, Toshiko closely behind him.

"Tosh, Owen, this is the Doctor."

Tosh's and Owen's jaw dropped simultaneously, and Jack stifled a laugh.

"You're pretty legendary around here, Doctor."

"Obviously."

"Doctor, may I introduce to you," he began, indicating to each of his team members as he spoke. "Gwen Cooper- public liaison, Toshiko Sato- computer genius and Owen Harper- medical officer. Plus, Ianto Jones, who is down in the guest rooms."

"And he's your boyfriend, is he?" The Doctor inquired.

Jack dismissed his comment with a roll of the eyes. "This my team. We are Torchwood Three."

"Is this all?"

"Like I was _going _to say, we're different from the other Torchwood Institutes," Jack explained.

"Um, I'm sorry to interrupt, but Ianto is still down there. I think, know that he's here, The Doctor should take a look at him," Gwen suggested.

"Yeah, we should. C'mon Doctor, time for you to meet the last member of my team," Jack said.

_And the most important_, he thought.

The whole team proceeded down the stairs in single file, all having a million questions to ask the Doctor. They all filed into the guest room in which Ianto lay, sleeping silently, his nosebleed ceased.

"First time he's looked normal in a long time," Owen commented.

Jack touched Ianto's hand, but immediately recoiled.

"What's wrong?" Tosh asked.

"He's freezing cold. It's like…he's got hypothermia, or something."

"But he's sweating on his forehead," Owen observed. "Check his legs, Tosh."

Tosh removed the sheets to reveal Ianto's legs almost black and extremely swollen. "Oh my God."

"What the hell causes this?" Jack breathed, waiting for an answer from the Doctor.

"I have absolutely no idea."

**A/N: Thanks all for the very encouraging reviews. I do apologise that this took so long to update. Moving houses lack of computer. So I really do apologise.**

**However, hope you enjoyed the latest chapter! R&R! **


	7. The Doctor Is In

**Disclaimer: **Torchwood & Doctor Who Characters are the property of the BBC.

**A/N: **My my, it has been a long time. I apologise sincerely. And with time, a whole new series of Doctor Who and Torchwood has passed. So beware if my story doesn't tie in with them; it is a deliberate action.

**Spoiler: **For Doomsday [DW] and Adam [TW Season 2], Fragments [TW Season 2]

**Worth The Risk- Chapter 7**

Ianto had endured all types of trauma throughout his life, physical and psychological. He was beaten during school for being smaller than other kids, he'd been living with next to no money when his job applications were constantly rejected, he was beaten when he was an adult for no other reason than he was walking through the wrong area in Cardiff, Lisa, having false memories implanted in his brain. And just when everything seemed to be going smoothly for him; a steady job, a handful of close friends, a loving relationship with his boss, this new condition blew everything away. His standards of pain had just been lifted to ultimum levels, one no human should ever feel. It felt like he was being held five feet away from a thrashing fire on the inside, but his skin was close to hypothermic levels and his teeth clattered together with such force that it would have been no surprise if his teeth began to chip away.

Not to mention the pain of having to hear from the Doctor, the very prestigious and well-known myth in Torchwood, thanks to Jack, that was supposed to be some sort of walking encyclopaedia that he didn't _know_, had _absolutely no idea _what was wrong with Ianto. If the Doctor couldn't help him, what chance did he have of survival?

"What do you mean you have absolutely no idea?!" Jack was on the verge of ripping his hair out, which was saying something.

"Jack, these symptoms don't fit any biological pattern I have seen," The Doctor looked from Ianto's bulbous, blackened legs to his blood stained torso and then his bluish arms and fingertips.

"So, these symptoms are completely new to you?"

"No. I have seen these symptoms before; every symptom Ianto has, but in different cases."

"Owen said that they're all symptoms relating to brain cancer patients." Jack left his team with Ianto and led the Doctor out of the guest room and back towards the main area of the Hub.

"That may have been the case before I arrived. But his swollen legs which are black, as if they've been burned, and then his icy cold skin. His body should be one temperature, not hot _and _cold."

"So what cases does his symptoms come from?" Jack asked.

"Well, his blue skin and temperature obviously comes from terrestrial hypothermia. Has he been in contact with extremely cold conditions?" The Doctor and Jack stepped over the puddles of melted ice cubes and walked into Jack's office.

"Doctor, this is Cardiff. But even so, even _I _know that there is nothing around here that could cause that." Jack gestured to the couch and then sat in his own chair behind his desk. The Doctor chose to remain standing, and turned slowly after inspecting every inch of Jack's office.

"Oh, I dunno," he said, looking closely at some mathematical equations Toshiko had drawn up and stuck on Jack's wall, "Doesn't Torchwood have a giant freezer? Perhaps to keep captured aliens and the like inside. Give them more of a feel of their natural habitat while they're imprisoned in another?"

"Would you stop with the cheap shots?" Jack insisted. "This isn't about Torchwood. This is about helping Ianto."

"You're right. This is about helping Ianto. But before I can help, I just want to know one thing. Did you join Torchwood before or after you realised Rose had died?" The Doctor said solemnly, with a hint of harshness in his tone.

Jack winced. He imagined her perfectly round face, whose cheeks stood out every time she smiled. Oh, that smile. It lit up the room and people couldn't help but to smile back. Her brown eyes could be filled with such fire, and then quickly doused with compassion and kindness. Her actions spoke louder than her cockney English accent, and the world seemed a bit less bright without her. Rose Tyler, the angel. "I had joined before I had heard of Rose's death. But it tore me up inside something bad…it still does." Jack repressed the memory of that day that he read Rose and Jackie's name on the list of the missing, assumed dead. He wanted to ask what happened, but was cut off.

" Ianto's bizarre skin pigmentation in his legs derives from a disease from the planet Orycical. Actually, it comes from a fatal bird on that planet," Now, the Doctor took a seat on the couch. "This bird carries a toxic poison in it's beak that is transmitted through the skin pigments of a human if they are pecked by it, turning the skin black, starting with the feet."

Jack was dumbfounded. "A bird?"

"Precisely. Did you happen to catch a _maekrica spasiptomis morte _recently and just happened to mistake it for a common Iris?"

"Ianto isn't a huge bird enthusiast."

"So, how does he cope with a large pterodactyl living here?"

"You noticed it?"

"Well, my skills of observing the minute living pattern of a pterodactyl isn't too good, but the large droppings that it leaves behind are very obvious," the Doctor pointed out.

Jack rolled his eyes and sighed. "Great. We'll be smelling that for weeks."

"The odour emanating from Ianto's now decaying body will over-power that."

"_Decaying_?"

"When a human is pecked by _maekrica spasiptomis morte_, their skin begins to decay before the toxin reaches the major organs." Jack remained silent. "Ianto will literally be falling to pieces before he is dead," the Doctor forced himself to say. He could see the horror building up in Jack's blue eyes, and he was only beginning to understand how much Ianto means to him.

"Is there anything that can be done to reverse it?" Jack tried to erase the vivid images of Ianto's beautiful porcelain skin becoming plagued and haggard.

"There are medicines and treatments available back on Orycical. They keep the disease quarantined, so other planets never know of it. But, because Ianto's case is vicious and unpredictable, we can't estimate if the medicine will reverse the disease's effects or possibly be a catalyst for _other _symptoms to arise."

His office seemed to become much smaller. Jack was trying to maintain a stable breathing pattern whilst trying to comprehend the information he was just given. A long moment passed without either saying anything.

"What about…Ianto's…other…symptoms?"

"The seizures are a clear indicator of some foreign electrical activity going on in his brain. Unless, Ianto's has a history of seizures."

Jack recalled the incident with a "team member", Adam, who existed by inserting himself as a memory within each every-one else's memories. Ianto had stumbled across who Adam really was, or who he really _wasn't _and as such Adam had implanted shocking images of Ianto killing innocent women as a warning to not tell the others. "There was a particular incident where Ianto's memories were manipulated. Could that have anything to do with it?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Possibly. The brain is delicate and having to deal with these new memories and then having to fit them in may have added some unwanted stress on it."

"…You don't want to know how that happened?" Jack said, puzzled.

"Nope." He quickly replied. "I'm trying to keep myself and Torchwood fairly separate. And at the moment, it's not going too well…Think of it as me being kind."

Jack grumbled. 'What did I say about the cheap shots?" The Doctor shrugged innocently as Jack stood up from his desk. "Follow me."

Silently, Jack once again found himself leading the Doctor through his Hub. He didn't mind it though. For once, he felt like he had more authority over him.

_Shut up! That's _Torchwood's _way of thinking!_

"To assess the problem," Jack said, walking down the stairs to the infirmary, "you might want to know the source." He held up the golden trinket box, showing the Doctor, who fished out his glasses from his trench coat pocket, the large crack.

"Talk about workplace misconduct. Some-one _threw _this at Ianto?" The Doctor attempted to joke, but received no laughter. "Sorry."

"This washed through the Rift a few days ago and ended up in Cardigan Bay. It was so cold that it burnt the skin and melted plastic and we haven't been able to compile much information on it. Our archives don't even tell us it's origin—"

"But this might." Toshiko came strolling down the stairs with the "locator" in her hands.

"How do you even know what it is?" Both Jack and the Doctor waited for an answer.

She launched into a long progression filled with the technological and extraterrestrial jargon that only employees of Torchwood could understand. Of course, it was Toshiko, the little genius who built a sonic resonator from incorrect planning and got herself locked up in UNIT for it; she had quite an eye for problem solving.

"But, we don't know whether the locator has the trinket box's planet of origin on record. It's like a huge database, really."

Jack tossed without reverence the trinket box to Tosh who awkwardly caught it in her left hand. She instinctively brought her right hand to help steady her catch and there was the distinct clink of metal on metal.

"You know, I always thought Torchwood would be one for protocol and the proper procedure of handling extraterrestrial objects…" The Doctor commented, raising his eyebrow at Jack.

"What? And the last of the Timelords is, as well?" Jack thought about how the Doctor presented himself as a diplomat, always trying to be the mediator between two opposing sides, usually himself and some other race affected by the horrifying Time War, being so noble as to never pick up a gun or weapon, and comparing that with his extremely ostentatious personality.

_I suppose being the last of his kind doesn't warrant such a need to be as observant as his ancestors. _

The high-pitched sounds coming the "locator" are what broke Jack from his thoughts. Toshiko had set the trinket box down on the metal infirmary table and had begun scanning it. Minutes went passed as Jack, the Doctor and Toshiko eagerly for the "locator" to come up with a result.

The hologram had begun…

_This is it…_

The luminescent blue light coming from the hologram began to spell out the trinket box's profile…

_With this, we can found out what exactly is wrong with Ianto without second-guessing. We can hop in the Doctor's TARDIS and fly there in a matter of seconds and grab ourselves medicine, and Ianto can start getting better by today…I'll have him back, soon. _

There was so much anticipation in the room that it felt like every-one was two feet off the ground. They needed this result; Ianto needed this result. For all Jack knew, which wasn't very much in terms of Ianto's illness, he was getting worse by the day, and all he wanted now more than ever was to lie in bed in Ianto's apartment in the better suburbs of Cardiff, cradling Ianto as he lay on his chest and catching the light wind that blew through the window into the bedroom.

It would've been the perfect ending to such a hectic week. But unfortunately, another hectic week was lined up to begin immediately, as the locator displayed:

**PLANET OF ORIGIN: UNKNOWN**

For a word that generally doesn't sound very harsh, each time it disappeared and reappeared felt like Jack was being shot, and he was quite familiar with the experience. It felt like he had dropped the two feet, but was continuing to fall through the floor to the centre of the earth and his face grew hotter with anger. He wanted to scream, but he couldn't. At least, not in front of the Doctor and Toshiko. At Torchwood, Jack was known for his cool façade. This would not be the best time for him to lose it.

Toshiko was also bummed. It hurt her to see Ianto going through so much pain and not being able to get any help.

The Doctor, however, was not. In fact, it would have seemed mighty offensive to see him as he beamed. The Doctor, although not entirely familiar with the "locator" had known that it would've been highly unlikely for it to come up with a match. Instead, whilst Jack and Tosh were eagerly waiting, the Doctor was contemplating.

"You say that the "locator is like a database?" The Doctor's voice had a hint of hope in it, compared to the gloomy atmosphere that they all stood in.

It was Jack who answered. "Well, yes. When we found it, it had thousands of planets on record and it could take scans and trace where alien artefacts came from. We'd forgotten it until now."

"Well, some databases not only can tell where objects are from, but they can determine where they've _been._" The Doctor placed emphasis on the last word and watched Jack's and Tosh's face to see their response. They both had caught on to what the Doctor was suggesting and were waiting keenly for the second half of the explanation.

"And I know where an even _bigger _database is." Keeping true to his character, the Doctor unexpectedly bolted up the stairs towards every-one's workstations. Jack had forgot Gwen and Owen, whom had been working silently. They both simultaneously looked up to see the procession of the Doctor, followed by Jack and then further back was Toshiko, who was obviously finding it difficult to run in her shoes.

"Gwen, open the door!" Jack yelled.

He had barely finished his command before the steel door had began rolling open.

"Where are you guys off to?" Owen asked.

"Just stay here and look after Ianto. I'll be back!" He replied as he chased the Doctor out of the Hub and into the elevator.

_Where have I heard that before? _Gwen and Owen both thought in unison.

Toshiko, who was not as fast or equipped to run, had to literally leap between the closing doors of the elevators before they shut.

They ascended quickly into the public office of "Torchwood". Jack's stride faltered as he moved out of the elevator into where Ianto often worked. As he ran past the desk, he saw a coffee mug and a stopwatch laying next to the computer keyboard.

_We will use it again,_ he promised.

The light from the sun shocked Toshiko and Jack, whom had been working through the night and into the next day to find anything about Ianto's mysterious ailment. Time had a tendency to mean little when working in Torchwood, with the exception of countdowns, which the Torchwood team had faced many times. It was only when Jack recognised the flaps of the Doctor's brown trench coat did he see exactly where he was running to.

It was as if a spark had ignited within Jack as he bounded off after Jack toward it. He knew exactly what the Doctor meant when he had said he knew where a "bigger database" was.

The Doctor reached the TARDIS first and reached into his brown trench coat to find his key. He found it and pulled it out, and was surprised to find in his hand _two _TARDIS keys. He knew exactly whom the second key had belonged to, but this was not the time to reminisce about the good ol' days.

By the time that he had unlocked the door, Jack had caught up and they both entered the familiar blue box. The Doctor continued through to its main control area, a circular desk with hundreds of buttons and levers on it with the Time Vortex that sprouted through the middle and went upwards which produced the bluish haze that the inside of the TARDIS basked in.

Jack had forgotten about the awesomeness effect that the TARDIS had on people. _It's bigger on the inside. _He stood, remembering when he was a welcomed traveller in this vessel. He wasn't so sure how welcome he was now.

The wind was knocked out of his as something heavy crashed into him from behind. His was sent tumbling onto the floor, smothered by Toshiko.

"Owwww…"

"Oh, Jack, I'm so sorry. I didn't—"

"It's okay, Tosh."

They both heaved themselves. Jack walked forward toward the Doctor, but this time, it was Tosh who stood and looked in awe.

Jack joined the Doctor at the control panel and noticed the he wasn't staring at any of the buttons, but at Toshiko, whose eyes were darting every which way.

"Bet you ten quid she says it." The Doctor whispered.

"You're on."

They both watched Toshiko as her eyes danced around the TARDIS. "It's…It's…It's _bigger _on the…_inside_!" The Doctor and Jack exploded into cheers and groans.

"See, no matter just how much of a genius you are, no-one can ever ready themselves for it," The Doctor laughed. "I'll grab that money from you later. Now, Tosh, hand me the "locator" please."

Tosh slowly walked up the ascending ramp and joined Jack and handed the alien artefact to the Doctor.

"What do you plan to do?" she asked.

"Oh, a little bit of jiggery pokery," he mused. He pulled out his sonic screwdriver and shined it on the "locator", which started to project its blue hologram. He ran around the control panel and thrust the locator into a small crevasse next to a one of many levers. The TARDIS immediately reacted, and the it began to whirl into motion.

Toshiko, not ready for the bumpy journey was thrown into the seat and she held on for dear life as she saw Jack and the Doctor hanging onto the control panel, smiling excitedly.

With one final twirl to the left, the TARDIS stopped abruptly. She was never planning on doing that again. How on earth did he get such good balance?

_After that, I doubt we're on earth anymore. Over the rainbow?_

"Where are we?" She asked.

"Come on," the Doctor indicated with a flick of the head toward the door. Toshiko slowly stood up from the seat, her legs still shaking from the ride and stood next to the door.

"Have you ever been off earth before?" The Doctor asked casually.

"I've been inside a UNIT holding facility."

"Well, I think you should do the honours."

Tosh looked up at the Doctor, who was looking very smug, as he held out his arm in a gesture to open the door.

Tosh breathed as her heart raced. She took hold of the door handle and gripped it tightly. She had always wanted this day to come. Despite finding new alien artefacts every day, there was no way she could've prepared herself for this moment, because she didn't think it was possible.

"Toshiko, I welcome you to—"

She opened the door.


End file.
